


The Shallows

by HappyLeech



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Gen, Magic AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-21 04:29:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22555111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyLeech/pseuds/HappyLeech
Summary: Douglas Eiffel is many things. Father, criminal, communications officer.And Siren.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 27





	The Shallows

**Author's Note:**

> _Oh my one, swear I'm trying  
>  What good would it do lying  
> Saw something in the shadows  
> Drew me into the shallows- Whirlpool by Sea Wolf_

Douglas Eiffel was many things. 

He was a father, a former communications officer with the airforce, an alcoholic, a pack-a-day smoker, a criminal, and the comms officer aboard the USS Hephaestus.

He was also a Siren.

It wasn’t anything he talked about, not in polite-  _ Human _ \- company, not with other Inhumans, and definitely not with Minkowski and Hilbert. Not when Humans didn’t know about Inhumans, not when Sirens still held such poor reputations among other Inhumans.

Hilbert might be a Shifter, smelling of citrus and, strangely, rot, and Minkowski  _ something _ smelling of animal blood, but that didn’t mean he was going to tell them that he was a Siren instead of Mer.

The thing about Sirens was, when you grew up on a diet of fresh blood and fish eggs, people tended to look at you as being evil. Doug wasn’t evil, he just had to  _ eat _ , same as everyone. 

Sirens came in two flavours, and Doug was a mix of both. A mother who was Saltwater and a father who was Freshwater, leaving him a black sheep even among black sheep. 

That wasn’t to say he wasn’t cared for. While his mother split soon after he was born, his father’s family took care of him, teaching him everything there was to know until a Salt cousin lured him away to the ocean.

Candy, who wasn’t a blood cousin but a cousin in the sense that all Sirens were related, took him under her fin, showing him the ocean and, more importantly, hunting on land. She introduced him to land music, to alcohol, to cigarettes, to  _ bars. _

"Alcohol does nothing, we don't process it," she told him while he was choking down a rum and coke. "But it's great cover. I just pretend to be too drunk and usually that leads to a meal. You drink and be social and someone will go home with you. And cigs suppress our hunger. It's great if you can't eat for a while, keeps you from trying to bite someone in public."

The last thing she did for him before the split ways was get him papers and a job. 

Doug hadn't been sure about the military at first, but he did get to play with as many radios as he wanted there. He ate on his days off, and thralled anyone who noticed his excentricities.

Then came Kate.

Doug didn't eat people he knew and he definitely didn't eat bed partners, which was how Kate Garcia went from potential meal to mother of his child.

He'd met her at a bar, took her to his motel room, and decided partway through sex that he wasnt going to eat her- it wasnt frowned upon to consume prey after sex but it always left a bad taste in his mouth for more than one reason - and when he left the next morning, he left behind the motel room, Kate, and his wallet.

When she called him a few months later, crying and screaming and demanding that he come back and help her, he did, panicked. If he was a black sheep among black sheep, the baby would be a  _ target _ , if anyone knew.

That lead to Anne, to starving, to  _ Jaws _ , to the fights, feeding, court, the crash— to  _ everything. _

To the Hephaestus, where his food was limited to freeze dried meals and fake coffee and where he sat in the comms room, cigarette clenched between his teeth whenever the hunger pains got too bad to handle. 

* * *

“Aren’t th-those bad for people?” Hera asked, and Doug shrugged, holding the cigarette in his mouth and breathing in the faint taste of nicotine. After a few minutes his hunger pains dulled and he sighed. Hilbert had caught him staring, making a comment about not being a silly comic book villain, and he’d excused himself from the mess to try and calm the urge to feed.

“Yep. Can’t get enough of them, though.”

“The Commander will take those a-away again if she catches you,” Hera reminded him, and he snorted.

“Baby, she can  _ try _ . Besides, if Hilbert wasn’t so late with those lozenges of his, I wouldn’t be doing this.” Somehow they managed to work nearly as well as the cigarettes and once they ran out, or Minkowski took them away, the lozenges would be all he had left to keep him from attacking the others. 

"I'm s-starting to think you're addicted to them," Hera said and Doug sighed.

"Of course I am! It's how I know they work. But I can stop anytime I want, scouts honour."

"Hmmmmm…" Hera made a disbelieving noise. 

“Look, baby, would I lie to you?”

“Yes.”

Doug shrugged. She had him there- the number of lies he fed her, and the Commander, and Hilbert probably outweighed any lies they told. 

“This is Officer Doug Eiffel from the Hephaestus Station, _ is there anyone out there? _ ”

Nothing but static, and he sighed. It wasn’t like he knew if a Thrall would work on aliens or not, and if it did, who was to say that they’d speak any language he understood?

A thrall still in his voice, he turned back to the radio and started to speak. If there was anyone out there, they were bound to hear him  _ eventually _ .

* * *

Renée Minkowski was many things.

For her, the most important detail about her life was that she was the current Commanding Officer and in charge of the Hephaestus Mission. Others would argue that the fact she was a Vampire was a more important detail to share.

Not that she shared it with her crew- she hadn’t even wanted to share it with Goddard, but Mr. Cutter had known when she went in for her interview. He had assured her that she would have anything she needed to flourish on the station, hadn’t blinked when she said she needed animal blood, not human, and promised to keep that she was a Vampire from the others. 

She didn’t want to scare them. She also wasn’t sure how she _ felt _ about them. 

Hera was fine enough, not that she had much experience with A.Is, but she doesn’t mention Renée’s blood-shakes to the others and kept them all from dying a gruesome death, so she was appreciated. Eiffel and Hilbert, on the other hand…

Between Eiffel’s infuriating habit of whistling birdsong over the intercom and Hilbert’s madcap, random experiments that caught fire more often than not, she was beginning to think that they were being set up to fail from the start.

“...that would be ridiculous though, wouldn’t it Dominik?” she whispered to herself, alone in a room too big for one woman, on a station too big for three beings. 

_ What do your instincts say? _ She can almost hear him reply.

“I don’t know,” Renée whispered back. “This station is too big and they haven’t given us much of anything in terms of direction. Look for signs of life, monitor the star. What are they looking for?”

“What was that, Commander?” Hera asked, and Renée didn’t jump, she was a vampire, she was  _ better _ than that.

“Nothing, sorry, Hera. Just talking to myself. Is there anything wrong?”

“No, I j-just heard you talking. Sorry for disturbing y-you, Commander. Have a good sleep.”

Renée didn’t answer, curling up in the bottom of her sleeping bag and closing her eyes. Tomorrow, when she was finished her duties, she’d  _ really _ look around, impersonate the most stubborn man she knew and hunt down anything strange hiding in the station.

* * *

_ “What is this, who are you, what—” _

_ “Shhhhh, hush, I have you, Arbuz, be calm,” someone says. “You’re brand new, aren’t you? Lucky I found you before a Hunter.” _

_ “What?” _

_ “Someone must have talked to you, if you speak. I am Patryk and I am a vampire. You are also a vampire.” _

_ “What is that? I don’t understand.” _

_ “...oh dear.” _

* * *

The next morning Renée nursed her bloodshake in the mess, staring blearily at nothing. She hadn’t spoken to Patryk since just before marrying Dominik- he didn’t even know that she’d gone to space. 

“Good morning, Commander,” Hilbert said as he floated in, and she stared, a little jealous. It was obvious to her that he was a Shifter, and with the ease that he moved through the air, he  _ had _ to be some kind of bird.

“Mornin’ Commander,” Eiffel said as well, and she nodded to them both. He was Mer, so he also took to the lack of gravity to ease, leaving her to be the only one struggling still to acclimatize to things. “I can’t believe we’re almost out of coffee.”

“Complaining about it doesn’t make more appear, Officer Eiffel,” Hilbert retaliated, and Renée sighed as she tuned out their bickering.

Soon Hilbert would retreat to his lab and Eiffel would squirrel himself away in the comms room, and she’d finally be alone to explore.

As long as Hera didn’t stop her.

**Author's Note:**

> It has taken me so, _so_ long to get this written. I've been basically roleplaying this AU with Boxonthenile and their version of this AU on google docs for the last year and have finally written something I can share! (Unless y'all really want the "My Dominik/Nile's Jacobi" stuff)
> 
> * * *
> 
> *This is the...4th attempt by me to get something written for this au rip  
> *Renée is a [Watermelon Vampire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_pumpkins_and_watermelons/) so I've decided that gives her different weaknesses and strengths than a regular vampire
> 
> * * *
> 
> [Personal Tumblr](http://happyleech.tumblr.com/)


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